Peter Hotez and Mohammad Rokni say the U.S and Iran should put aside their ideological differences to engage in an intense and focused scientific collaboration and produce an urgently needed technology that serves humanity.\

"Today, both the U.S. and Iran are under serious threat from several neglected tropical diseases that have emerged in our countries because of a variety of factors, including extreme poverty, urbanization, population growth, and possibly climate change. They include dengue fever, a mosquito-transmitted viral infection that results in hemorrhage, shock, and death. Dengue has recently emerged on the U.S. Gulf Coast and in southeastern Iran neighboring Pakistan. Kinetoplastid infections such as Chagas disease, a cause of severe heart disease, are now widespread among the poor in Texas and the southern U.S. where over 300,000 cases occur, while leishmaniasis, a severely disfiguring skin disease, affects 100,000 or more Iranians, and has also emerged in Texas and Oklahoma. Worm infections are still commonly found in impoverished areas in both countries, and where infections overall account for a significant amount of the health care burdens."